★★★☆☆
Three Stars
Gags left me feeling cautiously confident about Oxford’s comedic future.
This was a performance that was in many ways akin to having a deep, unctuous full body massage: initially rather painful and awkward, but surprisingly enjoyable and refined at the end (if leaving you slightly conflicted).
Comprised of a series of small sketch pieces, Gags highlighted contemporary obsessions with the minutiae of social mores, from the Attenborough-eqsue “mating ritual” in a seedy Sainsbury’s to politics of Power Rangers clothing. The ensuing chuckles certainly held a mirror up to the great British obsession with social mores, whether concerning those who sniff the scented air of society’s upper rafters or those you find lurking in the smoking area at Camera at 2am. A sketch about a man in his car frantically trying to reach his child bearing wife only to be obstructed by a ticket machine left me cackling quietly away to myself, although this could only be because I’ve witnessed this problem several times at Heathrow Airport.
The first half was definitely the weaker of the two, but was marginally redeemed by its emphasis on physical comedy rather than witticisms; perhaps that’s why some of the writing in the first half stood out to me as weaker than the second. Thankfuly this was raised by strong performances from Rachel Watkeys Dowlie and George Mather, the latter of which has one of those semi-innate senses of comic timing. Funniest of all though, was a performance from Joseph Morpurgo, giving us a quick succession of stereotypes with sharp improv and a nice bit of audience interaction thrown into the mix. Whether or not this was purely down to him, the humour in the second half seemed to be sharper and the writing tighter, particularly the slightly metafictional doctors sketch about a dying joke- or to paraphrase, “penises are always funny”.
Gags is not a bad show. More to the point, it is not an unfunny show, and it’s laughs come by cleverly either confirming or subverting our preconceptions-particularly in the latter half. But as I left I left the Old Fire Station, I couldn’t help but feel that the humour was a bit, well… safe. The darkest it got was a few puns about a professional assassination service. Next time, less Armstrong and Miller, and more Frankie Boyle please guys.
